Paul Sewald Seeks to Help Vulnerable Youth and Families Through Sewald’s Strikeout 4 Kids

Phoenix Sewald Strikeouts 4 Kids is a charity started by Diamondbacks closer Paul Sewald and his wife, Molly, three years ago. For the Sewalds, kids have been the center of their lives for the past few years. As a more established relief pitcher, he felt like it was time for him to give back to the community.

The Sewald’s Strikeouts 4 Kids program aims to help local children and give them a space free from abuse and neglect by building strong families. For every strikeout Sewald records this year, he will donate $1,000 to Child Crisis Arizona.

Child Crisis Arizona is an organization that helps vulnerable families for the past five decades. They provide intervention in times of crisis and help to strengthen families to prevent those crisis situations. Their services include emergency shelter, foster care, counseling, and more to support the Arizona community’s most vulnerable children, youth, and families. For the past nine years, they’ve received a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator.

Sewald spoke to the media about Sewald’s Strikeout 4 Kids, his motivation towards giving back to help children, and why he chose to partner with Child Crisis Arizona.

“I just think about everything that Molly and I do for our girls, it kills me to see that some of these families don’t have the resources they possibly have. If I can do anything to help them, then I feel like that’s necessary.”

Paul Sewald was traded to the Diamondbacks last July, so they didn’t move to an Arizona organization. He reached out to the community service people within the Diamondbacks organization, who gave him a recommendation for Child Crisis. After a tour, it took only 10 minutes for the Sewalds to be sold in partnering with them.

“We thought it was just families that are vulnerable due to abuse, and that’s just the bare minimum of what they do,” said Sewald. “They give education to kids that don’t have that opportunity. Child care is so expensive now, sometimes parents are more willing to not have a job so they wouldn’t have to pay for child care. They can do school there, it’s a safety net for all these kids that need a safe place they can call home and they know they can get food, water, and basic needs we all take for granted. They have a great fostering program, anyone who’s been part of the fostering program knows that’s kind of a disaster, and our government does the very best that they can. Child Crisis is going to do everything and more, go above and beyond to make sure these kids are going to the proper families that are going to love them more than they can imagine.”

Sewald’s season got off to a late start after missing the first 35 games of the season with a left oblique strain. Since being activated from the injured list on May 7, the Diamondbacks closer has recorded three saves and six strikeouts. So far, the Sewalds have donated $7,000 to Child Crisis Arizona. The Diamondbacks Foundation will make a matching donation at the end of the season.

“They have been absolutely instrumental in making sure we can get this off the ground, we can find the people we need to talk to, the line of communication was extremely quick in making sure we get this done.” said Sewald.